I talk to strangers in elevators. But not just to any stranger. I pick and choose, depending on the elevator, the mix of people, and, of course, if I have anything to say. Our time together is short and there must be some connection to our shared experience riding up or down. Not quite an elevator pitch, but a close relative. Timing is everything.

It might be Monday morning. No eager beavers on Monday morning. “Thank God it’s Friday,” I might say. I’m often the warm up act for the week. And, if I’m lucky, I’ll get a chuckle. Out of complete strangers. Friday afternoons, it’s a virtual party as office after office empties out for the weekend. Everyone is jovial, anticipating two days off, and talk is cheap.

Yesterday, after getting my morning coffee, I was standing in our office lobby waiting to be whisked upstairs. Another woman and I waited as the elevator door opened. Out walked a coworker of mine. As she walked passed me she smiled and asked, in that perfunctory fashion, “Hi, how’s it going?” Of course, my answer was preordained, no matter how I felt. I replied, “Great.”

The two of us, the stranger and I, got on the elevator: me to the 3rd floor and she to the 5th. As we began our assent, I turned to her and said, “I’m really not great. But this is the ‘Truth Elevator.’ You must tell the truth in this, and only this elevator.”